Saturday, 10 March 2018

GdA Game 4 ~ Russo-Prussian Alliance.

So it was another game of General d'Armee at NWA Croydon today. This time the Prussians combined with a small Russian force to take the war to the outnumbered French.

In our last game where the Prussians were outnumbered and took up a defensive position and prepared to sell themselves dearly. This time it was the French who put up a defence and faced a full Prussian brigade (division) with a smaller, mixed detachment of a couple of brigades and a small Russian brigade with some formidable 12 gun batteries in tow. The French fielded two small divisions each of a 3 or 4 brigades.

The Prussians were Peter & I with our newest addition the our growing GdA group ~ Jim and his Russians. Robin & Andrew once again played the French. While it sounds like the French were heavily outnumbered it has to be remembered that quite a lot of the coalition troops were Reserves and Landwehr whilst the French were predominantly Line with some Elite cavalry.

So, the French took up a defensive deployment centered on some hedged fields with a walled farmhouse on their left and a small group of out-buildings in the center. For the purpose of the game a unit in the walled area was considered to be occupying the yard and farmhouse likewise, any unit on the crossroad was considered to be occupying the group of out-buildings.

The Coalition deployed with the Russians on the right facing the farmhouse and the and Prussians in the center and left.

The French got the initiative on the first turn and moved up their skirmishers on their right and pushed out some infantry and cavalry to guard against a large Russian cavalry presence on their left. The Coalition made a general advance along the line. First blood went to the French as both skirmish lines opened fire.

Using two turns of Forwards ADC tasking's I managed to push one brigade up and conduct a left hook to threaten the French flank and deployed my battery on a hill overlooking the French center.

Accurate shooting from Pete's skirmish line drove an advanced leger battalion in the French center backwards. Looking at the pic you can see they left two dead behind!

In response to my left-hook, Robin released his reserve to come around and try, in turn, to turn my flank.

From what I could make out, the Russians were having trouble getting their forces moving (Jim's first game with GdA) and their cavalry was stuck in a place unable to move out due to Andrew's decision to push out to his left. Jim deployed his horse battery in front of the regiments and they proceeded to perform appallingly with bad dice rolls resulting in several Fatigue Casualties and Low Ammunition.

On the Prussian left, the French attempted to launch a charge at my battery on the hill. But, before they committed, some confusion and a recalculation of the charge distance left them standing where they were (no doubt an outspoken captain explained to the colonel that the prospect of being stranded in the middle of the surrounding Prussians was a distinct possibility).

Unfortunately for the dragoons they started to take telling casualties from the Prussian skirmishers.

My new divisional commander figure makes his debut

(below on the right with some ADC's).

Robin does some tricky maneuvering whilst Andrew

and Jim discuss life on the Russian Front.

The French counter hook came in close and I tried to counter it by wheeling my furthest battalion to face them. We won the initiative and I managed to launch a charge at the leading French battalion. I attached the brigadier and also gave them a Glory tasking.

Unfortunately the charge ended in a serious set back for my brave men. They were forced to retire and with 4 casualties they were now reduced from Line status to Recruit (Reserve Rule).

In the center, Peter kept up the pressure forcing Robin to draw back where he formed a steady line. Pete constantly picked out the center leger battalion for long range fire from his battery in order to create a weak point in the French line. He then launched a charge on the leger using an Infantry Assault ADC tasking. Unfortunately the lead charge unit had to be his line regiment and not the Gurde zu Fuss with their big white plumes.

The leger's defensive fire and fire from the support battalion was very good and Pete's troops suffered for it, but they passed a Discipline Test and kept going in. However, the casualties counted in the end and both units retired back to their starting positions.

I'd lost track of what was happening with the Russians but I was aware that the poor under-performing horse battery finally gave up and dispersed. Their poor dice rolling resulted in 4 Fatigue Casualties and constant skirmish and counter battery fire kept the casualties mounting.

On my flank I kept up a constant accurate fire on the French dragoons who became Hesitant and, due to a Discipline Test became Unformed, just stood there and took it. Then came the shot of the day... My skirmish line fired and I rolled:

This took the dragoons up to 10 casualties.

In the next turn the French took the initiative and the Dragoons launched a charge at one of my Reserve battalions.

My battalion managed a good volley and with support fire inflicted another couple of casualties. Then we rolled for the Charge. I rolled 8. Robin rolled: (blue dice)

And the hapless dragoons dispersed and took the walk of shame back to their storage box.

And a cry was heard: "Unleash zee Landwehr!"

I had been holding my landwehr in reserve and I was lucky enough to roll 4 ADC's in the next turn. I gave them ADC, Redeploy and Forwards taskings. This sent them on their way with the cavalry leading.

I thought the Russian flank was quiet but all of a sudden things started to happen. Seemingly from out of nowhere, Jim launched an Infantry Assault on the farmhouse. We've never done an assault on a BUA before so this was new... In the final tally, Andrew rolled 6 dice and Jim rolled 4. Andrew rolled very badly with zero hits and Jim scored two hits. Enough to drive the French out.

That was unexpected. I did mention to Andrew that some Russian general had said that "the bayonet was the true weapon of the Russian soldier." To which he replied, "Lots of generals say stupid things."

Meanwhile, my landwehr cavalry maneuvered into position. The next turn and we won the initiative again so I launched a charge against the French flank battalions. The dice were not on the side of France this day and he failed to form square and became unformed.

The lances of my brave boys forced the first battalion to retreat and they then Charged On into the next battalion which resulted in a melee and eventually saw the Frenchmen ridden down.

The French flank collapsed and the farmhouse was in Russian hands. It was late in the day and the game was called: a Coalition victory!

Conclusion...

Another great fun game and the first real win for my brave Prussians. I figure that all they needed was direction and the presence of an actual Divisional Commander figure on the table was just what the doctor ordered.

It was great to have Jim join us and I hope we can get a few more club members who have expressed interest on board for a demo game or two. We have players with Austrian and Polish armies as well as more French. Peter also has Confederation of the Rhine (Bavarian's if I recall rightly).

We're getting more and more fluent with the rules with every game and some turns seem to fly past. I think today's game resulted in somewhere around a dozen to 13 or 14 turns. Missing from this report is a lot of shooting an battery fire, which took place all over the table. My central battalions took decent casualties but held the line and allowed the breakthrough in the end.

9 comments:

Great report Ian and so good to see so many wonderfully painted figures on the the table. The rules certainly allow the tactical scope that we enjoy as well so great to see you recruiting more players into the fold.

Very fine! We had our first infantry assault on a BUA and interpreted the rule as "no supporting units allowed attacking or defending BUA's", which made me think why use that tasking for attacking BUA's? Interested to hesr how you guys see it.

Hi John,We never got to a second round but I was going to say that the "supporting unit" would be able to reinforce on the second round. But your question made me re-read the rule and it seems we would have been wrong. So, it looks like the Infantry Assault tasking was wasted!!! As I said, it was a first but because you gave me pause to re-read it, it seems we'll know better next time.

About Me

I've been a wargamer since the 1970's and I originally started this blog to chart my 28mm sculpting. However, I have since stopped sculpting and this blog has become dedicated to my wargaming hobby.
I play a range of wargames from skirmish sized games through to Big Battalions I started with WWII in the mid 1970's when I also use to play a lot of board games too. Many years of D&D followed and then a long sabbatical. I started wargaming again in the early 2000's and have continued in various forms ever since.